January 7th, 1990

While his father-in-law and Valhov were wrangling at the highest levels, and their men were sitting at a stand-still in the valley, Roy Mustang was actually enjoying himself. Whitewater's instructions to make the Drachmans uncomfortable without being able to blame Amestris had turned out to be a lot of fun for him and his team of alchemists. Unexplained small avalanches dumping hundreds of pounds of snow and ice that destroyed dozens of tents and buried vehicles; nights when their fires just wouldn't stay lit for wind or inexplicably wet wood, or where they would flare randomly out of control, catching the unwary or things nearby on fire. They were careful that nothing near the Drachmans would bear the marks of transmutation, and it was never at the same time of day, or necessarily a specific part of camp. They spread out the suffering fairly evenly, but he was sure that they had made the Drachmans very uncomfortable. One of his favorites was the minor earthquake that had only affected their side of the ravine, and had tipped over several latrines on the Drachman side. It was great practice at subtle, effective alchemy, and Roy and his team were having fun with it, which was far better than sitting, twiddling their thumbs and trying to keep busy, which was what so many of the others were doing.

It also kept him from having too much time wondering what Trisha and his kids were up to. He had missed the holidays, and they would be back in school now. Rosa's Middle School had a dance coming up in a few weeks, and he could only imagine how many boys would be lining up to ask out his little girl; and how frustrating it would be not to be there to terrify whichever one she agreed to, if she accepted any invitations. He was grateful that, so far, his daughter did not seem particularly over-concerned with boys, or fashion. She was much like her mother, and her grandmothers; practical. It was one of the few things that allowed him to sleep at night.

"How long are we going to sit here, Sir?" he asked Whitewater as they sat in the command tent, looking over the map they had drawn of the valley; the map Roy felt he had more than memorized. "Is there something about these negotiations we aren't hearing? This seems like a rather cut-and-dry situation at this point. Valhov can't control the country yet, and we've asked only for very basic permissions. Either we move through, or we blow things up. I'm beginning to think we'd get further if something just blew up." Something on their side, not obviously linked to alchemy, but that would be more of a set-back… like their artillery. Roy was reasonably sure he could hit it at distance.

Cal Fischer looked as frustrated as Roy felt, but he knew that was only because Cal knew Roy wouldn't say anything outside the tent. Still, Fischer shook his head. "No, you know all of our critical orders, and no I cannot allow you to blow stuff up, even if it would be satisfying. Not yet, anyway. Until Heimler says otherwise, or they shoot first, our hands are tied here." Then he smiled. "I do have some good news, though. This morning, Proteus contacted me."

Now that was news. "Did they make it?"

Whitewater nodded. "They made it inside Karmatsk last night with a little ingenuity and subtle alchemy, with the Zinovek soldiers none the wiser."

Roy chuckled. He had been with Ted when his wife's cousin had discovered his crazy knack for breaking and entering in a war zone. "That's good to hear. So the new radio towers are working."

Another nod. "They reached out to Central after we spoke, and I heard from Heimler that contact was made. It doesn't change what we're doing here for the moment, but there is progress being made, and he thinks we are near something happening. Valhov's changed his tone a bit in private negotiations, so hopefully we'll be on our way in the next couple of days."

"Forward or backward?" Roy asked. He knew it would take a lot to convince Franz Heimler and the Assembly to pull their men back out of Drachma without reparations for the murders, and without their Embassy and known civilians.

"No official word, but I'd bet a good bottle of scotch on forward."

"Sounds tasty." Roy grinned. "I'd bet against you, except I agree, so I'd lose."

Fischer leaned back in his chair. "Let's just hope we're not both wrong."

"If we are, we'll split it."

"You're on."

Franz' office was beginning to look more like intelligence headquarters than the investigations offices were, he mused, as he looked around the cramped space. Normally it seemed the most spacious office—and outer offices—in the building, but now there were rows of tables and desks covered in equipment that was constantly scanning radio frequencies and television signals coming in and out of Drachma, and there were now four separate phone lines patched in besides the main number to make sure that the primary line was left open for direct communication with Valhov, should the Drachman ever come to the point of conversing by voice instead of through more old-fashioned wire messaging. There was a station for that too. Franz had insisting on having it all in one place, so nothing got missed and he was there in case anything came through that needed immediate attention.

He hadn't been home in days, but he didn't need to. He had clothes kept here, and there were showers in the gymnasium, and the cafeteria if he needed food, though James had brought him home-cooked meals more than once that he and Krista had prepared.

Right now, he sat staring at a television that was showing Drachman commercials, but would shortly be showing the nightly news. He had gotten a wire from Valhov's offices that morning, telling him to be watching tonight, because he intended to make a public statement that he was sure Amestris would find very informational.

Franz had no idea what the man intended to do, but he was watching. He also knew that the Assembly had scheduled an evening session to watch the same broadcast live into the Assembly hall. Others in Headquarters were likely watching as well, though he doubted anyone in Amestris who did not follow Drachman broadcasts already would know until the Amestrian press picked up on whatever it was.

The news began, with the usual basic report about how things were going with subduing the militant uprisings all over the country, which was being reported by the government as going much more successfully than intelligence was telling Franz. Propaganda at its finest. Then they announced a special report tonight, a speech from High Commander Valhov.

What came on screen next was not at all what Franz—or his staffers and intelligence officers who had gathered around—were expecting. For one thing, the place he was standing seemed to be a room with no natural light, but just a couple of very dingy yellow ceiling lights. The wall behind him looked like old stone or brick, and the camera was quite close on his face, but also seemed to be hand-held.

"Greetings," Valhov said in thickly accented, but very understandable Amestrian. "Tonight I wish to make a very direct statement to President Heimler of Amestris. For several days now, the President has attempted to claim that his forces, which are illegally even now on Drachman soil, are there for peaceful purposes. Yet, he sends men with weapons and artillery, ready for combat. Defensive he claims, but he shows no trust that I will, in good faith, abide by my word to restore Drachma to peace and prosperity. They would see us fail, and throw all of Drachma into a downward spiral of internal destruction. So tonight, I am offering a final ultimatum to you, Mister Franz Heimler. Our negotiations are over. You will remove your men from Drachma immediately, or our most valuable hostage will lose her life."

"Hostage?" Anastas snorted, looking puzzled. "What hostage? We know for a fact that Gloria Fischer, and all of the surviving Embassy members, are in Karmatsk. We just confirmed it!"

Franz felt a cold trickle of dread. Who the hell could Valhov be holding hostage that he thought he could use them as leverage against, not just Amestris, but him personally? There was no one in the world he cared enough for to negotiate with a man he considered a traitor and a terrorist leader.

Valhov was grinning broadly now. "I think you will find our offer more convincing now, but I will not push you. I have been patient. You have three days for your men to retreat, or I will kill your wife: Sara Elric Heimler."

An expletive unbecoming a world leader—several in fact—came out of Franz's mouth as he stared, disbelieving, at the screen. "What is he trying to pull?" He felt a rush of anger, mingled with twisted amusement. "The entire world knows Sara's been dead for almost eight years."

"I am sure you do not believe me," Valhov went on smoothly. "That is why I have brought our camera here, to give you proof." With that, the image swung from Valhov to a stairwell, which they went down, and then at metal cell door with a slit in it, and the camera moved closer until it could peer through the slit in the dim light. Inside there was stirrings and murmuring, and then there was a woman on screen who, even in the dim, fuzzy image, could have been Sara's twin. At least, it seemed to Franz…and only if she were rail-thin, near-bald, and filthy.

They heard a kick at the door, and the woman cringed, and cried out in Drachman, though Franz understood the words no, stop, please no more! The voice could have been Sara's, if it were roughened, stripped of its music, and in Drachman.

It could be her, except it couldn't be her. Sara was dead. Franz had dressed her body himself, had seen her corpse, had watched her be buried in the ground, along with his heart, and a part of his soul. That Valhov would try to exploit a woman who was clearly tortured and in pain, and had been for a long time—that Valhov would try and use her to manipulate him—it made him angrier than he thought he had possibly ever been, except for the hatred he had felt for the Hashman Syndicate the day Sara died.

There was no way it was her, and yet there was something haunted and terrified in the eyes of the woman in the cell, in the aching hopelessness in her voice. He couldn't let Valhov do this to anyone, Sara or not. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. "I'd like to wring his neck," he muttered, before he realized that everyone was staring at him. At some point, he had come to his feet, and his hands were clenched tightly, so tightly they were trembling.

He was getting a lot of stares. "It can't be her," Colonel Wilkins commented, but he looked doubtful as he stared up at Franz. "Can it… Sir?"

Valhov wasn't finished yet. The camera swung back around to his face, which was no longer smiling, but dead serious. "I mean it, Heimler. Three days to get out of Drachman business, or she dies. Do you really want to be responsible for the death of this woman? If your soldiers don't leave, they'll be next. I will destroy them where they stand, and there will not be any way you can stop us. I await your call."

The broadcast swapped back to the news, where the anchor was now briefly summarizing the threat—very heavily biased and with some editing—in Drachman for the local population. Franz didn't care. He was no longer listening to anything except the pounding of his own heartbeat as it surged through him, throbbing in his ears, and anger and pain and disbelief throbbed in his every pore.

Sara was dead. Horribly, irrevocably dead; but everyone knew that, so why would Valhov made such a ludicrous claim? It was entirely out of character unless…. But it was impossible. Is it? A little voice of doubt whispered in the back of his head. The building was on fire, the corpse was damaged. Can you be absolutely certain? Except he had been. He and Ethan both had seen her dead body up close. It had been the most agonizing moment of his life, a series of them, each worse than the last, from the moment the news reported the attack to the moment she was buried in the ground, and every one after that reminded him of the vibrant, brilliant, glorious woman that he had the honor of loving.

Yet Valhov was saying otherwise. If this woman—this innocent woman, whoever she was—was not Sara, than she was a pawn, and she would die for absolutely nothing. If it was Sara… he would be directly responsible for her death—again. Was he willing to take that risk?

He did not get to answer himself, as there was a knock at the door, and then Tore's head appeared in the doorway as it opened. Tore looked equally shell-shocked. "President Heimler, the Assembly wants to talk to you."

The Assembly Hall was in an uproar when Tore arrived with Franz. They had walked through the hallways in silence. Tore had dozens of questions, but the look on his friend's face made it clear that now was very much not the time to attempt to ask any of them. Besides which, he would probably hear those answers in a few moments, because the Assembly would ask them.

He was right, because the first thing they wanted to know was how the hell Valhov could even make such a ludicrous claim, that he had a hero of Amestris—a dead hero of Amestris—trapped in a cell somewhere in Drachma and was using her as leverage against the State by attacking Franz personally. They wanted to know if it was even remotely possible, and they wanted to know what Franz intended to do about it.

Tore sat in his usual seat for when he attended, and glanced across at Charisa, who looked as dumbfounded as the rest of them. Of course, Sara and Charisa had always had a special friendship. It had been Sara who introduced the Bredas to Charisa and Niam when they were newly-orphaned children, and that had led to their adoption. Despite the age difference, they had become friends over the years that followed. This had to be hurting her as much as it was hurting him. What he could scarcely imagine was what was going on in Franz's head right now, or his heart. It was impossible and ludicrous, yet even Tore found himself running through scenarios of how it might, even remotely, be plausible that the woman they had all seen in that dim cell, through slightly static-y television signals, was the indomitable, unbreakable, General Sara Elric Heimler, Twilight Alchemist.

He watched Franz, holding it together, explain that there was no reason to believe Valhov's claim. He had seen his wife's body himself. It had been identified by physicians. She was dead. The finality in that statement sounded raw, and there was definitely fury behind those normally kind, brown eyes. "But that doesn't mean we can let him do it!" he finally said, with a surprising vehemence. "This woman, whoever she is, does not deserve to be murdered in a ploy to manipulate us. We cannot lose focus of the true objective, which is to rescue our people, and Creta's people, without bloodshed if possible. If we wait three days, he will kill this woman, and then he will attack, and we will be in direct conflict anyway. If she dies, she dies for nothing. There is no scenario otherwise. If she dies, Valhov will say we don't really care about people besides our own, or possibly not even ours, because he will continue to claim that she was Sara, and that I allowed her to die, no matter if it is at the orders of the Assembly or my own convictions."

"What would you have us do then?" the Senior Speaker asked.

That was where Franz seemed to lose steam. "I wish I had an answer," he replied honestly. "The right thing to do would be to somehow mount a rescue, to remove this woman from his control no matter who she is, because no one deserves this kind of death."

"We don't even know where she is," another Assemblyman pointed out, her dark eyes sympathetic, but her tone critical.

"Now, that is not entirely true," Franz corrected her. "We've been tracking their television signals, radio signals, everything we can, for some time. We've had time to locate most of their points of origin. While this was obviously not in the studio, if Valhov was there, we have every reason to believe that the prisoner must be somewhere in or near Petrayevka. There's no way Valhov would have gone far outside the city in the current political climate. With a little more time, I expect our investigations team will have pinpointed a smaller search area, possibly within a couple of blocks, or maybe the specific building. Our analysts are on it even while we speak here."

"War if we do, war if we don't," the Senior Speaker sighed. Tore nodded. It had to be what they were all thinking. The only way they would not start a conflict was if they did what Valhov was demanding, and retreated, left Drachma, and sat and waited out a revolution and civil war that could last for years.

Retreating was one thing they could not afford to do. If they did, they would never get men into Drachma again, and they would be leaving Proteus's team trapped with the ambassadors. Tore was reasonably certain that telling Cal to abandon his daughter in Drachma would start a mutiny.

"We cannot negotiate with this man," Franz continued staunchly. "He gave us three days to respond, and I intend to make full use of them to come up with a plan, and put it into action. That is, if I have the Assembly's permission."

They must have talked about this at least some while Tore was bringing Franz, because there were a lot of knowing nods, and the Speaker turned to Franz. "It is the Assembly's feeling that in this matter, your judgment will handle it. We leave this in the hands of you, and your Generals."

"Thank you, esteemed members of the Assembly," Franz spoke. "We won't let you down."

Ethan was just finishing dinner when the phone rang.

"I'll get it," Aeddan bounced up from the couch where he was reading one of his college textbooks, and made it across the room before Ethan could budge.

He grinned. Probably a friend of his son's anyway.

"Oh, hey, Uncle Franz." That was not what Ethan had expected to hear. He looked up from the table as his son turned and held out the receiver. "It's for you, Dad."

"Thanks." Ethan got up and took the phone. "What's up?" he asked, assuming it had something to do with work, or the mess in Drachma. If Franz was calling, it might be a medical question, or an alchemical one. He really didn't know.

"Did you see the Drachman news tonight?" Franz asked.

Ethan paused. "No, I didn't." He usually saw the Drachman feeds when they replayed them later that evening on the ten o'clock news. He had missed tonight's normal Amestrian national report because he had been at the hospital checking on patients. "What's going on?"

The pause on the other end made him nervous. "Ethan… is there any chance the body we saw… wasn't Sara's?"

"What?" Ethan stared at the phone for a moment, wishing he could see Franz's face, figure out what he was thinking. "That's a crazy question." It was also a painful one. Of course he had seen Sara's body. He had repaired it for the funeral, so she wouldn't look so burnt and damaged.

"I know it's crazy," Franz replied, speaking quietly. "Just tell me if it's possible."

He wanted to exclaim that of course it wasn't possible, but then he knew that Franz knew that as well as he did. Which meant, if he was asking, there was some reason to speculate. He stopped, and considered. "It was pretty damaged, but they found the body right where Sara fell. I mean, unless someone managed to swap her with a dead ringer look-alike, it has to have been her." It was hard to think back that far now. He hadn't just assumed at the time, because it looked like her. Then he had repaired the damage….but using the mental image in his head. What if she had been different before that? "Unless it wasn't and I just made it more convincing. There was a lot of cell degradation and deterioration by the time I got her. What's going on here, Franz?"

"Valhov just broadcast across international news that he's holding Sara hostage and will kill her in three days, live. He showed a woman in a cell."

A woman who had to look and sound something like Sara, or Franz wouldn't even be questioning. The idea that they would even pretend to have Sara was ludicrous, which somehow made it… not really possible, but plausible, maybe. Except it wasn't. Ethan rubbed his forehead. "Well there's a headache."

"Tell me about it," Franz commented bitterly. "I've been questioning every moment of those few days for an hour. You were the one who laid hands on the body, so I thought if anyone would be able to confirm or deny it, it might be you."

"Now you've got me questioning my own memory," Ethan acknowledged. "I can't say definitively. The more I think about how much repair I had to do to get her right, the more I wonder if that's because it wasn't how she looked in the first place." Something stuck in his throat. "If it's her…" Oh damn.

"Yeah." Franz went quiet again for a moment. "Thanks, Ethan. Believe it or not, that helps me make my decision. You may be hearing from me again."

"I'll be up," Ethan promised. Then another thought occurred to him. "Dad and Mom are still out, if this is on the news at 10…"

"Have Edward call me, not like he won't anyway. I've got to go. Thanks, Ethan." Franz hung up without another word.

For several seconds after he had hung up, Ethan just stood there, staring through the wall, trying to absorb what he had just heard.

The phone rang under his hand again. Startled, Ethan picked up. "Hello?"

"Hey, Mr. Elric. It's Andrew. Is Ethan there?"

This was probably the call Ethan had been expecting. "Just a second. I'll get him." He turned and looked at his son. "Hey, kid. It's your boyfriend."

Aeddan stared at him, wide-eyed, even as he stood up. "I… how did you know?"

Ethan smiled tiredly. The better question would be how did I not know you swing both ways? "I figured it out. Does Nicole know?" he asked, referring to the girl he also knew his son had been seeing since the start of term.

Aeddan nodded, though he still looked flustered as he reached out to take the phone from his father. "Yeah. We're just casually dating. She's cool with it."

"All I needed to know." Ethan handed over the phone and headed for the downstairs office, where he stuck his head in on Lia, who was working on grading. "Hey, love. I need to run to the clinic really quick to check some records. Do we need anything while I'm out?" No reason to concern her yet.

Lia looked up, and smiled. "Nope, I picked up milk on the way home. When will you be home?"

"In an hour, tops," he replied. "This should only take a couple of minutes." He had the reports on Sara's body, and his own notes. Maybe, just maybe, he could find something he had missed in his grief all those years ago.

Franz was fairly certain he had never had to make a harder decision. He had spoken to Tore after the meeting. He had spoken with Ethan. He didn't want to mention this to Edward and Winry if they didn't know yet. Not until he had a plan of action, but he still needed one more perspective. Picking up the phone and dialing the number from memory, he called the one other man who knew Sara well enough to give him the kind of perspective he specifically needed. Twenty minutes later he was standing outside the home of Marcus Kane, retired General, and Skyfire Alchemist.

Kane wasn't smiling, but he let Franz in and showed him to the living room. On the table sat two glasses and a bottle.

"First, take this," Kane offered him a glass. "We're going to need it."

Franz sniffed. Scotch. Strong scotch. "I feel like I need a clear head for this."

"If I've ever seen a man who needs a drink, it's you." Kane replied tiredly. "And me. Trust me. You need a clear conscience for this more than your mind."

Maybe he was right. Franz took the glass and upended it in one swallow. It burned all the way down, and he was glad he'd eaten something earlier when it hit his stomach. Then he waited while Kane refilled the glass. "We should sit."

"I do think sitting is going to be necessary." Kane gestured to the chairs in his living room, giving Franz his choice.

He took the nearest one, holding his glass in front of him as he tried to gather his thoughts. "I don't know what to do," he admitted finally.

Marcus sipped his scotch, looking thoughtful. "It's crazy. I'm trying to wrap my mind around it myself. Sara's been buried and dead for years, and suddenly this. It's illogical. It's insane… but it's not impossible, is it?" He looked meaningfully at Franz.

Franz nodded. "That's the problem. Even Ethan thinks it's possible the body could have been faked. Hard to do, but not impossible. And that… that woman. Did you see the broadcast?" By the time Franz had managed to get to calling Kane, the entire clip was being repeated and reshown in its entirety across the late-evening news as a special report.

Marcus nodded. "Images were terrible, but it sort of looked like her." Then there was a long pause. "The voice."

Franz sipped. The voice haunted him. "They're threatening to execute some poor woman to stop us, whether she's really Sara or not. It bothers me. It doesn't sit right to let them kill anyone needlessly."

"But they'll keep killing dozens or hundreds more people before the fight is over, even if you don't give in."

"It shouldn't make a difference who it is-" But it did. Franz had always felt guilty about Sara's death. They had known the Syndicate was targeting alchemists. She had insisted on going, that a warehouse inspection was safe, and she had died. Or, possibly worse, she had spent the past several years as a captive, abandoned and forgotten. If that was true, he would be letting his wife die again. Franz finished the second glass.

"We can't give in," Marcus spoke into the silence. "This is Amestris, after all. There's no withdrawing now until we've ended the current hostilities in Drachma, and that means helping the government in exile."

They couldn't give in. But he couldn't let that woman die, whoever it was. Even swearing in Drachman, she sounded like Sara. "We rescue her." That was all there was too it.

"We have three days to find where they have her locked up, and get there."

"Maybe I gave you too much scotch." Marcus looked skeptical. "Drachma is huge, how are you ever going to locate her, let alone get a rescue team up there in time?"

Franz shook his head. Well, maybe, but it wasn't affecting this. "Our intelligence team was tracking the signal when it came in, the phone call and they did their best to track where the visual broadcast originated from as well. We've narrowed it down, and it's getting closer. We should be able to pinpoint an exact location soon, because we do still have a couple of people in Petrayevka; they work for intelligence." He was grateful their spies had managed to stick it out. No matter what the up-and-up, it helped to have someone in the city. "So we find the building. Then, we send in a rescue team."

"But how will you get them there?"

"That, my old friend, is still classified information."

Marcus scowled at him, but only for a moment. Franz had a feeling Marcus knew what he was referring to. "Then I ask just one favor."

"What's that?"

"If you need someone who's not active duty but packs a punch on this mission, send me."

That was it then. Franz smiled then. He knew who he wanted to send, and this meant he was almost certain the entire team he had in mind would agree. "That is exactly what I was hoping you'd say."